tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18379706593469461182024-03-05T15:10:43.362-08:00A Writer's LifeRichard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.comBlogger424125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-91521667623531718182023-04-02T22:06:00.000-07:002023-04-02T22:06:01.613-07:00Hear this prayer we give<p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">Adapted from</span></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: #b45f06;">ENCYCLICAL LETTER LAUDATO SI’<br />OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS<br />ON CARE FOR OUR COMMON HOME<br />May 24, 2015</span></i></span><br /> </p><p>Hear this prayer we give<br />in union with creation<br /><br />You who are present in the whole of the universe<br />and in the smallest of your creations<br />You who embrace and inhabit all that exists<br /><br />Fill us with the power of your love<br />that we may protect life<br />and behold with gratitude the beauty<br />of all that you created<br /><br />Fill us with peace, that we may live <br />as brothers and sisters<br />harming no one<br /><br />Help us to rescue the abandoned<br />and forgotten of this earth<br />so precious in the eyes of the many gods<br /><br />Bring healing to our lives, <br />that we may protect the world<br />and not prey upon it<br />that we may sow beauty<br />not pollution and destruction<br /><br />Touch the hearts<br />of those who look only for gain<br />at the expense of the poor<br />and of the earth<br /><br />Teach us to discover the worth of each thing<br />to be filled with awe and contemplation<br />to recognize that we are profoundly united<br />with every creature<br />every living thing<br />as we journey towards the infinite light<br /><br />We thank you for being with us each day<br />Encourage us<br />we pray<br />in our struggle<br />for justice<br />love and peace</p>Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-26915147931372415492021-03-18T21:30:00.000-07:002021-03-18T21:30:02.926-07:00I am Georgia. A living example and embodiment of its history and hope, the pain and the promise, the brutality and the possibility<p class="css-18udl3b"> <em>On Wednesday, the Rev Raphael Warnock, elected in January as Georgia’s first African</em><em> American US senator, gave his first speech in Congress. He used the opportunity to condemn <a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/14/stacey-abrams-georgia-bill-restrict-voting-rights">voter suppression</a> and urge his colleagues to support legislation to make it easier for Americans to vote. Here are his remarks:</em></p><div class="css-1xlsfju"><div class="article-body-commercial-selector css-79elbk article-body-viewer-selector"><p class="css-18udl3b"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSA3RoG4JdtPZ1p_ezyxtEYgJrLuZq9QioZ836OgA7k46AeMWZr05FbXGlzxX5n2MCYL1tPlZYho1DoyB8f2CGfm6iBr_cyR95nGVHh4XuPYD8pKXmn6X_8IhzD1onGuM5yZhQ4aQYhO4/s1280/Warnock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSA3RoG4JdtPZ1p_ezyxtEYgJrLuZq9QioZ836OgA7k46AeMWZr05FbXGlzxX5n2MCYL1tPlZYho1DoyB8f2CGfm6iBr_cyR95nGVHh4XuPYD8pKXmn6X_8IhzD1onGuM5yZhQ4aQYhO4/w400-h225/Warnock.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p class="css-18udl3b">Before
I begin my formal remarks today, I want to pause to condemn the hatred
and violence that took eight precious lives last night in metropolitan
Atlanta. I grieve with Georgians, with Americans, with people of love
all across the world. This unspeakable violence, visited largely upon
the Asian community, is one that causes all of us to recommit ourselves
to [preventing] these kinds of tragedies from happening in the first
place. We pray for these families.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">I
rise here today as a proud American and as one of the newest members of
the Senate – in awe of the journey that has brought me to these
hallowed halls and with an abiding sense of reverence and gratitude for
the faith and sacrifices of ancestors who paved the way.</p><p class="css-18udl3b"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6V-BFWZgDoyHw480-Fr1Yk9U_-WWq_shP6MuIjInwbT2W9Z-miPJvLNEzWGlMwO_d_pDkJFQEdSv5_DO2jKBTVMJWILJV2an0PtRfJr4altqwHu-3TrxjBysvhmsGyHR5vijmrKISosA/s1078/Ebenezer_Baptist_Church_Atlanta_Georgia_December_1_2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1078" data-original-width="1024" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6V-BFWZgDoyHw480-Fr1Yk9U_-WWq_shP6MuIjInwbT2W9Z-miPJvLNEzWGlMwO_d_pDkJFQEdSv5_DO2jKBTVMJWILJV2an0PtRfJr4altqwHu-3TrxjBysvhmsGyHR5vijmrKISosA/w190-h200/Ebenezer_Baptist_Church_Atlanta_Georgia_December_1_2012.jpg" width="190" /></a></div>I
am a proud son of the great state of Georgia, born and raised in
Savannah, a coastal city known for its cobble-stone streets and verdant
town squares. Towering oak trees, centuries old and covered in gray
Spanish moss, stretched from one side of the street to the other, bend
and beckon the lover of history and horticulture to this city by the
sea. I was educated at Morehouse College and I serve still in the pulpit
at Ebenezer Baptist church; both in Atlanta, the cradle of the civil
rights movement. Like those oak trees, my roots go down deep and stretch
wide in the soil of Waycross, Burke county and Screven county. In a
word, I am Georgia. A living example and embodiment of its history and
hope, the pain and the promise, the brutality and the possibility.<p></p><p class="css-18udl3b">At
the time of my birth, Georgia’s two senators were Richard B Russell and
Herman E Talmadge, both arch-segregationists and unabashed adversaries
of the civil rights movement. After the supreme court’s landmark Brown v
Board ruling outlawing school segregation, Talmadge warned that “blood
will run in the streets of Atlanta.”</p><p class="css-18udl3b"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JBPc7OsJoEFV-nhfrr17W-NfVcV4icezrQaRREVFphWx_cigj4gJyTcvQbXe0NR4WKoFN50cDqu-Dw3io6kDHY2fgwdUh99SBFifJIQxh0oVPgzYVS6NvVGUpQhhV38GNFzST2bGyvc/s538/Eugene+Talmadge+Voting+Against+New+Deal+1936.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="538" data-original-width="418" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0JBPc7OsJoEFV-nhfrr17W-NfVcV4icezrQaRREVFphWx_cigj4gJyTcvQbXe0NR4WKoFN50cDqu-Dw3io6kDHY2fgwdUh99SBFifJIQxh0oVPgzYVS6NvVGUpQhhV38GNFzST2bGyvc/w156-h200/Eugene+Talmadge+Voting+Against+New+Deal+1936.jpg" width="156" /></a></div>Senator Talmadge’s father, Eugene
Talmadge, former governor of our state, had famously declared: “The
South loves the Negro in his place, but his place is at the back door.”
When once asked how he and his supporters might keep Black people away
from the polls, he picked up a scrap of paper and wrote a single word on
it: “Pistols.”<p></p><p class="css-18udl3b">Yet, there is something in the
American covenant – in its charter documents and its Jeffersonian
ideals – that bends toward freedom. Led by a preacher and a patriot
named King, Americans of all races stood up. History vindicated the
movement that sought to push us closer to our ideals, to lengthen and
strengthen the cords of our democracy, and I now hold the seat – the
Senate seat – where Herman E Talmadge sat.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">And
that’s why I love America. I love America because we always have a path
to make it better, to build a more perfect union. It is the place where
a kid like me who grew up in public housing, the first college graduate
in my family, can now serve as a United States senator. I had an older
father, he was born in 1917; serving in the army during World War II, he
was once asked to give up his seat to a young teenager while wearing
his soldier’s uniform, they said, “making the world safe for democracy”.
But he was never bitter. By the time I came along, he had already seen
the arc of change in our country. He maintained his faith in God, in his
family and in the American promise, and he passed that faith on to his
children.</p><p class="css-18udl3b"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOTEvKsdQRPqA0O6UPSbOZK71vLziUgUL7cVQhtQqoUTwjZIjj3sCJGB6EVGhkZL3AoD5ThIhjPkLD21wDFhfxIG0Mu5yDzgcQDAtlczoIbErsYb2KLF5ZLqBUkz7xoGSyKlZHFfuw4nw/s826/waycross+ga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="826" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOTEvKsdQRPqA0O6UPSbOZK71vLziUgUL7cVQhtQqoUTwjZIjj3sCJGB6EVGhkZL3AoD5ThIhjPkLD21wDFhfxIG0Mu5yDzgcQDAtlczoIbErsYb2KLF5ZLqBUkz7xoGSyKlZHFfuw4nw/w400-h250/waycross+ga.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />My
mother grew up in Waycross, Georgia. You know where that is? It’s way
‘cross Georgia. Like a lot of Black teenagers in the 1950s she spent her
summers picking somebody else’s tobacco and somebody else’s cotton. But
because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick
somebody else’s cotton went to the polls in January and picked her
youngest son to be a United States senator. Ours is a land where
possibility is born of democracy. A vote, a voice, a chance to help
determine the direction of the country and one’s own destiny within it.
Possibility born of democracy.<p></p><p class="css-18udl3b">That’s why this
past November and January, my mom and other citizens of Georgia grabbed
hold of that possibility and turned out in record numbers, 5 million in
November, 4.4 million in January. Far more than ever in our state’s
history. Turnout for a typical runoff doubled. And the people of Georgia
sent the state’s first African American senator and first Jewish
senator, my brother Jon Ossoff, to these hallowed halls.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">But
then, what happened? Some politicians did not approve of the choice
made by the majority of voters in a hard-fought election in which each
side got the chance to make its case to the voters. <b>And, rather than
adjusting their agenda, rather than changing their message, they are
busy trying to change the rules.</b> We are witnessing right now a massive
and unabashed assault on voting rights unlike anything we have seen
since the Jim Crow era. This is Jim Crow in new clothes.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">Since
the January election, some 250 voter suppression bills have been
introduced by state legislatures all across the country – from Georgia
to Arizona, from New Hampshire to Florida – [all] using the Big Lie of
voter fraud as a pretext for voter suppression. The same Big Lie that
led to a violent insurrection on this very Capitol – the day after my
election. Within 24 hours, we elected Georgia’s first African American
and Jewish senators, hours later the Capitol was assaulted. We see in
just a few precious hours the tension very much alive in the soul of
America. And the question before all of us at every moment is what will
we do to push us in the right direction.</p><p class="css-18udl3b"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEionvawUIQvKnSai8gp_owIJ17t8g9yzy-veqxDjQoPB4nGtiX_CjnqWDJ8k-IVtPR6G8aJIeoyyVF6uHHYbF3bJ_lPazxcZsymLPlV5ECSftI45Y2MaydoYFpUVTFdMd8ZFK1YV8DSDIg/s1000/Capitol-Insurrection-Trump-Coup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEionvawUIQvKnSai8gp_owIJ17t8g9yzy-veqxDjQoPB4nGtiX_CjnqWDJ8k-IVtPR6G8aJIeoyyVF6uHHYbF3bJ_lPazxcZsymLPlV5ECSftI45Y2MaydoYFpUVTFdMd8ZFK1YV8DSDIg/s320/Capitol-Insurrection-Trump-Coup.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="css-18udl3b">So
politicians driven by that big lie aim to severely limit, and in some
cases eliminate, automatic and same-day voter registration, mail-in and
absentee voting, and early voting and weekend voting. They want to make
it easier to purge voters from the voting roll altogether. As a voting
rights activist, I’ve seen up close just how draconian these measures
can be. I hail from a state that purged 200,000 voters one Saturday
night – in the middle of the night. We know what’s happening – some
people don’t want some people to vote.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">I was
honored on a few occasions to stand with our hero and my parishioner,
John Lewis. I was his pastor but I’m clear he was my mentor. On more
than one occasion we boarded buses together after Sunday church services
as part of our Souls to the Polls program, encouraging the Ebenezer
church family and communities of faith to participate in the democratic
process. Now just a few months after Congressman Lewis’s death, there
are those in the Georgia legislature, some who even dared to praise his
name, that are now trying to get rid of Sunday Souls to the Polls,
making it a crime for people who pray together to get on a bus together
and vote together. I think that’s wrong. In fact, I think a vote is a
kind of prayer about the world we desire for ourselves and our children.
And our prayers are stronger when we pray together.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">To
be sure, we have seen these kinds of voter suppression tactics before.
They are a part of a long and shameful history in Georgia and throughout
our nation. But refusing to be denied, Georgia citizens and citizens
across our country braved the heat and the cold and the rain, some
standing in line for five hours, six hours, 10 hours just to exercise
their constitutional right to vote. Young people, old people, sick
people, working people, already underpaid, forced to lose wages, to pay a
kind of poll tax while standing in line to vote.</p><p class="css-18udl3b"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEVQqw0ryFkg7M8A2NmcKUraq3bZlbUQ1xDGoeFRBZ2MB2OPBNfWTRQY5ToBxokwi-wDNBjfD9a_IhQ1pfrcZjr1W9DmbidB7hzntralOYPMu-V-ayNrUNz815X22rtk_MjDjFdJiUlO0/s760/201013-voting-georgia-jm-1509_15719d113425da42f2e0b955d1b240ed.fit-760w.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="507" data-original-width="760" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEVQqw0ryFkg7M8A2NmcKUraq3bZlbUQ1xDGoeFRBZ2MB2OPBNfWTRQY5ToBxokwi-wDNBjfD9a_IhQ1pfrcZjr1W9DmbidB7hzntralOYPMu-V-ayNrUNz815X22rtk_MjDjFdJiUlO0/s320/201013-voting-georgia-jm-1509_15719d113425da42f2e0b955d1b240ed.fit-760w.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />And
how did some politicians respond? Well, they are trying to make it a
crime to give people water and a snack, as they wait in lines that are
obviously being made longer by their draconian actions. Think about
that. Think about that. They are the ones making the lines longer –
through these draconian actions. Then, they want to make it a crime to
bring grandma some water as she is waiting in the line they are making
longer! Make no mistake. This is democracy in reverse. Rather than
voters being able to pick the politicians, the politicians are trying to
cherry pick their voters. I say this cannot stand.<p></p><p class="css-18udl3b">And
so I rise because that sacred and noble idea – one person, one vote –
is being threatened right now. Politicians in my home state and all
across America, in their craven lust for power, have launched a
full-fledged assault on voting rights. They are focused on winning at
any cost, even the cost of the democracy itself. I submit that it is the
job of each citizen to stand up for the voting rights of every citizen.
And it is the job of this body to do all that it can to defend the
viability of our democracy.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">That’s why I am a
proud co-sponsor of the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text" target="_blank">For The People Act</a>, which we introduced today.
The For The People Act is a major step forward in the march toward our
democratic ideals, making it easier, not harder, for eligible Americans
to vote by instituting common-sense, pro-democracy reforms like:</p><ul class="css-18udl3b"><li><p>Establishing national automatic voter registration for every
eligible citizen, and allowing all Americans to register to vote online
and on election day;</p></li><li><p>Requiring states to offer at least two weeks of early voting,
including weekends, in federal elections – keeping Souls to the Polls
programs alive;</p></li><li><p>Prohibiting states from restricting a person’s ability to vote absentee or by mail;</p></li><li><p>And preventing states from purging the voter rolls based solely
on unreliable evidence like someone’s voting history, something we’ve
seen in Georgia and other states in recent years.</p></li></ul><p class="css-18udl3b">And it would end the dominance of big money in our politics, and ensure our public servants are there serving the public.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">Amidst
these voter suppression laws and tactics, including partisan and racial
gerrymandering, and in a system awash in dark money and the dominance
of corporatist interests and politicians who do their bidding, the
voices of the American people have been increasingly drowned out and
crowded out and squeezed out of their own democracy. We must pass “For
The People” so that people might have a voice. Your vote is your voice
and your voice is your human dignity.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">But not
only that, we must pass the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/4263/text" target="_blank">John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act</a>.
Voting rights used to be a bipartisan issue. The last time the voting
rights bill was re-authorized was 2006. George W Bush was president and
it passed its chamber 98-0. But then in 2013, the supreme court rejected
the successful formula for supervision and pre-clearance, contained in
the 1965 Voting Rights Act. They asked Congress to fix it. That was
nearly eight years ago, and the American people are still waiting.
Stripped of protections, voters in states with a long history of voting
discrimination and voters in many other states have been thrown to the
winds.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">We Americans have noisy and spirited
debates about many things. And we should. That’s what it means to live
in a free country. But access to the ballot ought to be nonpartisan. <b>I
submit that there should be 100 votes in this chamber for policies that
will make it easier for Americans to make their voices heard in our
democracy.</b> Surely, there ought to be at least 60 people in this chamber
who believe, as I do, that the four most powerful words uttered in a
democracy are “the people have spoken”, and that therefore we must
ensure that all the people can speak.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">But if
not, we must still pass voting rights. The right to vote is preservative
of all other rights. It is not just another issue alongside other
issues. It is foundational. It is the reason why any of us has the
privilege of standing here in the first place. It is about the covenant
we have with one another as an American people. <i>E pluribus unum</i>: out of
many, one. It above all else must be protected.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">So
let’s be clear, I’m not here today to spiral into the procedural
argument regarding whether the filibuster in general has merits or has
outlived its usefulness. I’m here to say that this issue is bigger than
the filibuster. I stand before you saying that this issue – access to
voting and preempting politicians’ efforts to restrict voting – is so
fundamental to our democracy that it is too important to be held hostage
by a Senate rule, especially one historically used to restrict the
expansion of voting rights. <b>It is a contradiction to say we must protect
minority rights in the Senate while refusing to protect minority rights
in the society.</b> Colleagues, no Senate rule should overrule the
integrity of the democracy and we must find a way to pass voting rights
whether we get rid of the filibuster or not.</p><p class="css-18udl3b">As
a man of faith, I believe that democracy is a political enactment of a
spiritual idea – the sacred worth of all human beings, the notion that
we all have within us a spark of the divine, to participate in the
shaping of our own destiny. Reinhold Niebuhr was right: “[Humanity’s]
capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but [humanity’s]
inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”</p><p class="css-18udl3b">John
Lewis understood that and was beaten on a bridge defending it. Amelia
Boynton, like so many women not mentioned nearly enough, was gassed on
that same bridge. A white woman named Viola Liuzzo was killed. Medgar
Evers was murdered in his own driveway. Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman,
two Jews and an African American standing up for the sacred idea of
democracy, also paid the ultimate price. And we in this body would be
stopped and stymied by partisan politics? Short-term political gain?
Senate procedure? I say let’s get this done no matter what. I urge my
colleagues to pass these two bills. Strengthen and lengthen the cords of
our democracy, secure our credibility as the premier voice for
freedom-loving people and democratic movements all over the world, and
win the future for all of our children.</p></div></div>Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-77522403306259317452021-01-20T11:27:00.000-08:002021-01-20T11:27:49.686-08:00The Hill We Climb, by Amanda Gorman<p><span style="color: #3d85c6;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5cqUsOgMlpBVhg9tV6tA1v_mIbqBuG4A1ispQgojQGqOQ_DqDJSlHAve2uDNRLUtHh2Rz0iuJx7bcwELVZppCjTuoiDCCREnGXf9LTrq_32qe6_OtMDzavmYazMC-NRR4Iat_WnIj0c/s885/US_Capital_Sunrise.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="516" data-original-width="885" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_5cqUsOgMlpBVhg9tV6tA1v_mIbqBuG4A1ispQgojQGqOQ_DqDJSlHAve2uDNRLUtHh2Rz0iuJx7bcwELVZppCjTuoiDCCREnGXf9LTrq_32qe6_OtMDzavmYazMC-NRR4Iat_WnIj0c/w400-h234/US_Capital_Sunrise.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="color: #e69138;">Amanda Gorman—at 22, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history—delivered her poem at the U.S. Capitol, January 20, 2021.</span><span style="color: #e69138;"> </span><br /><p></p><p>When day comes we ask ourselves,<br />
Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?<br />
The loss we carry,<br />
a sea we must wade<br />
We braved the belly of the beast<br />
We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace<br />
And the norms and notions<br />
of what just is<br />
Isn’t always just-ice.<br />
And yet the dawn is ours<br />
before we knew it<br />
Somehow we do it<br />
Somehow we weathered and witnessed<br />
a nation that isn’t broken<br />
but simply unfinished<br />
We the successors of a country and a time<br />
Where a skinny black girl<br />
Descended from slaves and raised by a single mother<br />
Can dream of becoming president<br />
Only to find herself reciting for one.<br />
And yes we are far from polished<br />
far from pristine<br />
But that doesn’t mean that we are<br />
striving to form a union that is perfect.<br />
We are striving to forge our union with purpose<br />
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colours, characters and<br />
conditions of man.<br />
And so we lift our gaze not to what stands between us<br />
but what stands before us<br />
We close the divide because we know to put our future first<br />
We must first put our differences aside<br />
We lay down our arms<br />
So we can reach out our arms<br />
To one another.<br />
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.<br />
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:<br />
That even as we grieved, we grew<br />
That even as we hurt, we hoped<br />
That even as we tired, we tried.<br />
That we’ll forever be tied together, victorious.<br />
Not because we will never again know defeat<br />
But because we will never again sow division.<br />
Scripture tells us to envision<br />
That everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree<br />
And no one shall make them afraid.<br />
If we’re to live up to our own time<br />
Then victory won’t lie in the blade<br />
But in all the bridges we’ve made<br />
That is the promise to glade<br />
The hill we climb<br />
If only we dare.<br />
Because being American is more than a pride we inherit<br />
It’s the past we step into<br />
And how we repair it.<br />
We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation<br />
Rather than share it<br />
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.<br />
And this effort very nearly succeeded.<br />
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,<br />
it can never be permanently defeated.<br />
In this truth,<br />
in this faith we trust<br />
For while we have our eyes on the future,<br />
history has its eyes on us.<br />
This is the era of just redemption.<br />
We feared at its inception<br />
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs<br />
of such a terrifying hour<br />
but within it we found the power<br />
to author a new chapter.<br />
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.<br />
So while we once we asked,<br />
how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?,<br />
Now we assert<br />
How could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?<br />
We will not march back to what was<br />
but move to what shall be.<br />
A country that is bruised but whole,<br />
benevolent but bold,<br />
fierce and free.<br />
We will not be turned around<br />
or interrupted by intimidation<br />
because we know our inaction and inertia<br />
will be the inheritance of the next generation.<br />
Our blunders become their burdens.<br />
But one thing is certain;<br />
If we merge mercy with might,<br />
and might with right,<br />
then love becomes our legacy<br />
and change our children’s birthright.<br />
So let us leave behind a country<br />
better than the one we were left with.<br />
Every breath from my bronze pounded chest,<br />
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.<br />
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,<br />
We will rise from the windswept northeast<br />
where our forefathers first realized revolution.<br />
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,<br />
we will rise from the sunbaked south.<br />
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover<br />
and every known nook of our nation and<br />
every corner called our country,<br />
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge<br />
battered and beautiful.<br />
When day comes we step out of the shade,<br />
aflame and unafraid,<br />
The new dawn blooms as we free it.<br />
For there is always light,<br />
if only we’re brave enough to see it.<br />
If only we’re brave enough to be it.</p><p>______________________________________</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidp8_HrC8MBsk5ny3utaVXBeyE-xOeFryMTZ7O3FAIaEObpsBDmzYYDx8j_W-9UgoviK5o8rDm2ua1DOS6KSTAjTX9gOalKAwe-J4PTNmzP8SVjdra4DZd9-lJEcuW2kuUtWYNUsVECMs/s1004/Amanda_Gorman_B%253AW.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1004" data-original-width="988" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidp8_HrC8MBsk5ny3utaVXBeyE-xOeFryMTZ7O3FAIaEObpsBDmzYYDx8j_W-9UgoviK5o8rDm2ua1DOS6KSTAjTX9gOalKAwe-J4PTNmzP8SVjdra4DZd9-lJEcuW2kuUtWYNUsVECMs/w197-h200/Amanda_Gorman_B%253AW.jpg" width="197" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;">Amanda Gorman made history in 2017 by being named the first ever
National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States. Born and raised in
Los Angeles, she is a graduate of Harvard with a B.A. in Sociology.
Since publishing a poetry collection at 16, her writing has won her
invitations to the Obama White House and to perform for Lin-Manuel
Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and
others. Amanda has performed 4th of July and Thanksgiving poems for CBS
and she has spoken to large audiences at venues across the country, from
the Library of Congress to Lincoln Center. She has received a Genius
Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc.,
YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and
the Webby Awards. She currently writes for the New York Times newsletter
The Edit and recently signed a two-book deal with Viking (a division
of PenguinRandom House) after a bidding war involving eight publishers.
She recently traveled to Slovenia with Prada as a reporter on the
company's latest sustainability project.</span> <br /><p></p>Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-63334143843565508682020-11-18T21:13:00.001-08:002020-11-18T21:13:42.284-08:00Nature's Bait<p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFH67zv81evPKrVsGmppxu-Cpbgypo08tEESAQPFEESUF_G9uv9IQ6o4yycTSHnX_wYlh2Mhhbc_5ed_K3R6-SHbQOIsQXh0OzEc3zSo7Hyl5696VqKg8ivp1_ZqUQMXs38SZyPk431Y/s2048/IMG_3119.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcFH67zv81evPKrVsGmppxu-Cpbgypo08tEESAQPFEESUF_G9uv9IQ6o4yycTSHnX_wYlh2Mhhbc_5ed_K3R6-SHbQOIsQXh0OzEc3zSo7Hyl5696VqKg8ivp1_ZqUQMXs38SZyPk431Y/w320-h213/IMG_3119.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> The hawk was there<div style="text-align: center;">On the fence</div><div style="text-align: center;">Watching</div><div style="text-align: center;">Waiting</div><div style="text-align: center;">Patient</div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div></div><div style="text-align: center;">There were no birds among the branches in the dogwood</div><div style="text-align: center;">No birds flitting among the branches of the dogwood</div><div style="text-align: center;">Feasting on the fall berries</div><div style="text-align: center;">The bright red berries dusted with the first snow</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />The hawk was there</div><div style="text-align: center;">On the fence</div><div style="text-align: center;">Watching</div><div style="text-align: center;">Waiting</div><div style="text-align: center;">Patient</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />The bright red berries</div><div style="text-align: center;">Nature’s bait</div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjucpqMzi1C_pw0ywYd9qgshVpivd5_ICdFUuDphPvLlfWiDZq-qoyHqZCbCTYnE255oGzulFgsthLJshYet1H-XU_h4ncCwlBp4k5_ZM7ZU8sLeHOIcFowntxpexLnh9318t2CBaUHKb0/s2048/IMG_2345.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjucpqMzi1C_pw0ywYd9qgshVpivd5_ICdFUuDphPvLlfWiDZq-qoyHqZCbCTYnE255oGzulFgsthLJshYet1H-XU_h4ncCwlBp4k5_ZM7ZU8sLeHOIcFowntxpexLnh9318t2CBaUHKb0/w150-h200/IMG_2345.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /> </div><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><p></p>Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-80768203502611321042020-10-03T21:20:00.000-07:002020-10-03T21:20:23.745-07:00Full Moon<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SwwuqfuOFzrz9O24YAUxWMJ00sgGMupgfhPPLHfCvmPKWxcfYvPZmnzPnUo8QFRig-wtGqnWJLA43ngUTY4EwFGziVj9lSmxEjQFhLpVCvfbMNoU02f3CX8x_3X-j6O1iWJhyphenhyphenH-bXEY/s1024/IMG_7493_Moon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="682" data-original-width="1024" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6SwwuqfuOFzrz9O24YAUxWMJ00sgGMupgfhPPLHfCvmPKWxcfYvPZmnzPnUo8QFRig-wtGqnWJLA43ngUTY4EwFGziVj9lSmxEjQFhLpVCvfbMNoU02f3CX8x_3X-j6O1iWJhyphenhyphenH-bXEY/s320/IMG_7493_Moon.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><h4 align="center"><b><i>Full Moon</i></b></h4><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Isolate and full, the moon floats over the house by the river<br />Into the night the cold water rushes away below the gate<br />The bright gold spilled on the river is never still<br />The brilliance of my quilt is greater than precious silk<br />The circle without blemish<br />The empty mountains without sound<br />The moon hangs in the vacant, wide constellations<br />Pine cones drop in the old garden<br />The senna trees bloom<br />The same clear glory extends for ten thousand miles</i></p><p style="text-align: center;">Tu Fu, One Hundred Poems from the Chinese.</p>Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-5120331606005761732020-06-12T12:09:00.000-07:002020-06-12T12:09:01.536-07:00The Invisible Man<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLGfrIVtIDg68lBC5G0kuaIC3NIelP4eZaOiImqGctG-m4qai8XZ0RFV-jzbQn-UDj8AEGG89bcvSCTgb2vDTmAidaYw-XxC5UOQgaooBhJZOl1zsJkKhsOb5WnaDVUdIKrZA4jM4qJH8/s1600/Poseidonius-Naples-Museo-Archeologico-Nazionale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="137" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLGfrIVtIDg68lBC5G0kuaIC3NIelP4eZaOiImqGctG-m4qai8XZ0RFV-jzbQn-UDj8AEGG89bcvSCTgb2vDTmAidaYw-XxC5UOQgaooBhJZOl1zsJkKhsOb5WnaDVUdIKrZA4jM4qJH8/s200/Poseidonius-Naples-Museo-Archeologico-Nazionale.jpg" width="149" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
He found in himself<br />
a vast<br />
untapped source of<br />
Altruism<br />
an immense capacity for<br />
Understanding<br />
and a vacuum of<br />
Volition<br />
<br />
Locked<br />
deep in thought<br />
Crushed<br />
by the weight of burdens<br />
he had never assumed<br />
he<br />
Died<br />
<br />
His flesh<br />
Withered<br />
and stretched taught<br />
across his<br />
Bones<br />
A smile formed upon his face<br />
and turned into a<br />
Leer<br />
<br />
And<br />
Year<br />
by<br />
Year<br />
by<br />
Year<br />
he turned to<br />
Dust<br />
until he<br />
Disappeared<br />
<br />
the<br />
Invisible<br />
man
</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-80851306967189770802019-04-24T11:17:00.000-07:002019-04-24T11:17:03.598-07:00National Poetry Month: Gene Editing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxCMSiHhAUYtYYboIDQAGGjAOKtWJVpYN5icFf_DhCKAArcok6TbB2Tb_zIY5weQUi5p79cr9wNF6fRzqQjgvLOkdf4ozohDBQq3X8ksp1kdRLozwiYoyHRapz_jFG9_0ZpuoB2JWo5MA/s1600/woolly-mammoth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="432" height="207" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxCMSiHhAUYtYYboIDQAGGjAOKtWJVpYN5icFf_DhCKAArcok6TbB2Tb_zIY5weQUi5p79cr9wNF6fRzqQjgvLOkdf4ozohDBQq3X8ksp1kdRLozwiYoyHRapz_jFG9_0ZpuoB2JWo5MA/s320/woolly-mammoth.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #e69138;"><b>I Cloned a Woolly Mammoth</b></span></div>
<br />
I cloned a Woolly Mammoth<br />
Using tissue from a fossil<br />
Fully formed and found<br />
Frozen in the Lappish tundra<br />
<br />
I merged a cell from the mammoth’s tongue<br />
With the de-nucleated egg from a pigeon<br />
And fused the two in a Petri dish<br />
Hand-painted by a monk<br />
<br />
The monk paints dinner plates<br />
As well as laboratory dishes<br />
And lives a frugal life<br />
On the arid plains of the Mahabharata<br />
<br />
In that the tongue had been frozen<br />
For some fifteen thousand years<br />
I was reluctant to insert the growing embryo<br />
In the surrogate mammoth mother<br />
<br />
I’d chosen an African Elephant by the name of Molly<br />
To carry the embryonically infused egg<br />
And had become so attached to Molly<br />
That I was loath to see her chilled<br />
<br />
And so rather than implant the egg<br />
I separated stem cells for the embryo<br />
Then fused these embryonic stem cells<br />
To an enucleated mouse egg<br />
<br />
Then I implanted the enucleated mouse egg<br />
In Molly my surrogate mammoth mother<br />
And waited while she meandered about my farm<br />
Eating tons and tons of bamboo<br />
<br />
The monk doesn’t have a name<br />
Names inhibit separation from the ego<br />
And so the Petri dish was simply signed<br />
‘Monk’<br />
<br />
Six hundred and forty-four days later<br />
Molly stopped eating and simply stood<br />
Staring off towards the mountains<br />
When she started to slowly sway<br />
<br />
I knew then that she was about to give birth<br />
I watched as Molly swayed and squatted <br />
Then exclaimed in awe as<br />
Forty pigeons flew off looking for cheese<br />
<br />
But doesn’t signing the Petri dish signify attachment to the ego?<br />
This is something I’ve wondered about<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
___________________________________ </div>
According to James Clapper, former U.S. director of national intelligence, gene editing is a “weapon of mass destruction and proliferation.” Clapper was reporting on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Worldwide Threat Assessment of 2016. Genome Editing, under the section on Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation, states that, <br />
<br />
Research in genome editing conducted by countries with different regulatory or ethical standards than those of Western countries probably increases the risk of the creation of potentially harmful biological agents or products. Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications. Advances in genome editing in 2015 have compelled groups of high-profile US and European biologists to question unregulated editing of the human germline(cells that are relevant for reproduction), which might create inheritable genetic changes. Nevertheless, researchers will probably continue to encounter challenges to achieve the desired outcome of their genome modifications, in part because of the technical limitations that are inherent in available genome editing systems.<br />
<br />
The first known attempt at creating genetically modified human embryos in the United States was carried out in 2017 by a team of researchers in Portland, Oregon led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov of Oregon Health and Science University, and involved changing the DNA of a large number of one-cell embryos with the gene-editing technique CRISPR. Until the Portland study, scientists elsewhere were first to explore the controversial practice. Up until then, three previous reports of editing human embryos were all published by scientists in China.<br />
<br />
According to Stephen Buranyi, in NYR Daily,<br />
<br />
"If CRISPR has an agreed-upon red line, it is human germline editing (which, in effect, entails editing human embryos to create babies that will carry the edits in all of their cells, and will pass the changes on to any offspring they have). That line was crossed in November at the Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in Hong Kong, when a relatively unknown Chinese scientist named He Jiankui announced that he had introduced genetic changes in at least two human embryos that were carried to term, meaning that the first two gene-edited humans in history—twins, as it happens—exist somewhere in China."<br />
<br />
Buranyi wrote that, "When the journal Science chose the radical gene-editing technology CRISPR as its 2015 breakthrough of the year, the editorial team closed its description on a dire note. 'For better or worse, we all now live in CRISPR’s world.'”</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-29120800866368626062019-04-18T16:18:00.001-07:002019-04-18T16:18:59.029-07:00National Poetry Month: Water Pollution<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqpk5ik6SLQr3eiYqwuqgvK9ataruOL1oRE8diI0AsEt34zvQKwhT6Xh8-bUHW28l-bfK1hVDpmduUTsN0JqCmx4Qkj6SPgj5MeXbKrfqAot9Eb6kryS8jyQ4YcHPB_pj6c91Wu-OO0hc/s1600/Passaic_Pollution+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqpk5ik6SLQr3eiYqwuqgvK9ataruOL1oRE8diI0AsEt34zvQKwhT6Xh8-bUHW28l-bfK1hVDpmduUTsN0JqCmx4Qkj6SPgj5MeXbKrfqAot9Eb6kryS8jyQ4YcHPB_pj6c91Wu-OO0hc/s400/Passaic_Pollution+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b> Petie Macaroni</b></div>
<br />
Giampetro Maroni, aka Petie Macaroni<br />
put his plate in the sink and walked out of the kitchen<br />
His mother shouted from the living room<br />
"Put'a you plate in'a dishwash<br />
Like I toll you tousand time<br />
Madonna!"<br />
<br />
Maroni took the plate<br />
smeared with pasta sauce<br />
from the sink and put it in the dishwasher<br />
Then he went to the hall closet<br />
reached up to the shelf<br />
and took down his Glock 17<br />
with its customized grip <br />
<br />
He checked to see that it was loaded<br />
and then slipped it into the waistband at the back of his pants<br />
He took a black leather jacket from a hanger<br />
and shrugged his considerable bulk into it<br />
He patted his front pocket for his keys<br />
his back pocket for his wallet<br />
and walked out the front door<br />
His mother shouted<br />
"Doan slam'a da door!"<br />
<br />
Weeks later<br />
after Petie hadn't been heard from<br />
Mama Maroni would wonder if she'd driven her oldest son away<br />
with all of her haranguing<br />
<br />
That wasn't the case<br />
Petie would've come back home<br />
had he been able to swim up from forty feet under the Passaic River<br />
with two concrete blocks tied to his ankles<br />
and having inhaled a toxic soup of muddy water<br />
mixed with<br />
cadmium<br />
lead<br />
mercury<br />
and cancer-causing<br />
tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin<br />
________________________________________ <br />
Maxus, Tierra Solutions, owned by the Diamond Alkali plant in Newark, NJ, dumped cancer-causing dioxin in the Passaic a half century ago while manufacturing the infamous Vietnam-era defoliant <a href="https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/basics.asp">Agent Orange</a>.<br />
<br />
Documentation indicates that the Argentine Company <a href="https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/environment/2017/04/13/oil-company-trying-to-bail-on-14b-passaic-river-cleanup/100391530/">YPF SA hatched a scheme</a> to siphon assets away from its subsidiary, Maxus, so it could declare bankruptcy and avoid paying out possibly hundreds of millions of dollars toward cleaning up the Passaic, which is so polluted that the lower portion of the river is a Superfund site.<br />
<br />
According to the EPA’s latest <a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-03/documents/nrsa_0809_march_2_final.pdf">National Rivers and Streams Assessment</a>, 46% of our Nation’s rivers and streams are in poor biological condition, with only 28% in good condition. Human health screening values for mercury in fish tissue are exceeded in 13,144 miles of U.S. river length. In 23% of river and stream length, samples exceed an <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/enterococcus">enterococci</a> threshold level for protecting human health. Waters with high levels of bacteria may be unsafe for swimming and other types of contact recreation, let alone drinking.</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-15745654499396787182019-04-14T22:29:00.000-07:002019-04-18T11:38:31.153-07:00National Poetry Month: Gun Violence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwLjHqOVWyhOyVTnTxW3U-jwpNnMIqFbl4zkg_g5r_fU0FvggldUTkzjeJKDsb5dcEI923MYSOndcN2qaxv9EgOWQV1A-Yjs5Ep0FHw_q1kWzSQ8cT-RjB_izqa2-nNLuFnfpYDdpQf18/s1600/Gross-The-Pain-of-Surviving-a-School-Shooting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1058" data-original-width="1600" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwLjHqOVWyhOyVTnTxW3U-jwpNnMIqFbl4zkg_g5r_fU0FvggldUTkzjeJKDsb5dcEI923MYSOndcN2qaxv9EgOWQV1A-Yjs5Ep0FHw_q1kWzSQ8cT-RjB_izqa2-nNLuFnfpYDdpQf18/s320/Gross-The-Pain-of-Surviving-a-School-Shooting.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Guns Don't Kill People</b><br />
<br />
Guns don’t kill people</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
people kill people with guns</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
it’s their constitutional right to own</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the more the merrier</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
there’s little barrier to lethality</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
that’s the reality<br />
<br />
____________________________________________<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
</div>
The advantage that a small or light bullet has over a heavy one when it
comes to wound ballistics, is that it tumbles once it hits flesh. Bullets
are stabilized to fly through the air, and not through water, or a
body, which is approximately the same density as water. Bullets, like the .223 Rem fired by the AR-15, are
stable as long as they are in the air. When they hit something, like a child, they
immediately go unstable. This
is what makes a small bullet so lethal in wound ballistics.<br />
<br />
Heather Sher, a radiologist in one of the busiest trauma centers in the United States for 13 years, wrote this in a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/">2018 Atlantic article</a>:<br />
<br />
"I was looking at a CT scan of one of the mass-shooting victims from
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting">Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School</a>, who had been brought to the trauma
center during my call shift. The organ looked like an overripe melon
smashed by a sledgehammer, and was bleeding extensively. How could a
gunshot wound have caused this much damage?"<br />
<br />
"The bullet from an AR-15 passes through the body like a cigarette boat
traveling at maximum speed through a tiny canal. The tissue next to the
bullet is elastic—moving away from the bullet like waves of water
displaced by the boat—and then returns and settles back. This process is
called cavitation; it leaves the displaced tissue damaged or killed.
The high-velocity bullet causes a swath of tissue damage that extends
several inches from its path. It does not have to actually hit an artery
to damage it and cause catastrophic bleeding. Exit wounds can be the
size of an orange."<br />
<br />
Thoughts and prayers. <br />
<br /></div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-79800049110112904112019-04-09T09:38:00.001-07:002019-04-09T10:18:30.507-07:00Two roads diverged in a wood and I --<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The last lines of Robert Frost's well-known poem, <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken">The Road Not Taken</a>, are:</span></span></span> <br />
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><i>Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—</i></span></div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-indent: -1em;">
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><i>
I took the one less traveled by,</i></span></div>
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><i>
And that has made all the difference.</i></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJPRkqr8ToQr1dlM2sVCIfGZhFGjr9BIgQY09vT69fHlVs4pXBOTyTzolDTyZ5wnSAMYbOG_y4IhdFfK1p064pgcXSB-J265-4o6scAg64jsDy0XEqHUqCO4-zWBPJhCzFbqiK-s_23P4/s1600/Trump_Misdirection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJPRkqr8ToQr1dlM2sVCIfGZhFGjr9BIgQY09vT69fHlVs4pXBOTyTzolDTyZ5wnSAMYbOG_y4IhdFfK1p064pgcXSB-J265-4o6scAg64jsDy0XEqHUqCO4-zWBPJhCzFbqiK-s_23P4/s320/Trump_Misdirection.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Donald Trump is a master of misdirection and unless we're careful, he will have us racing down the wrong road and that <i>will make all the difference</i>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Americans who have over the years considered themselves liberal in the modern sense of the term, associated with or, like myself, migrated to the Democratic Party, because it, as a whole, best reflected our values. There is no "liberal" party. The term liberal has evolved over the years and still has different meanings in different parts of the world. I take my personal meaning of liberal from the <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/liberal-party-nomination-nyc-19600914">speech by John F. Kennedy</a>, delivered in 1960 -- my Junior Year at USC -- in which he said,</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>"...liberalism is not so much a party creed or a set of fixed platform
promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's
ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase
for himself and his fellow men the amount of Justice and freedom and
brotherhood which all human life deserves."</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>There's an IDEOLOGICAL battle</b> within (as well
as against) both camps of the traditional establishment parties. Trump
has taken the Republican Party by the throat and shaken the moderation
out of it, but there are still moderates who identify as Republicans and
conservatives, who feel completely set adrift.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Indep<span class="text_exposed_show">endents
who, according to a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx">March 2019 Gallup poll</a>, actually make up a larger percentage of
the voting population than either Democrats or Republicans, <a href="https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2016">swung the 2016 election for Trump</a> with many thinking he would become "more presidential" once in office.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>The POLITICAL battle</b> before us is between Republicans, led by Donald
J. Trump, and Democrats, with Tom Perez as prima facie leader. <a href="https://democrats.org/about/our-leaders/tom-perez/">Perez is Chair of the Democratic National Committee</a> (DNC). That, however, does not make him the leader of the left. Bernie Sanders emerged as the leader of the "old new left" in 2016, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a meteoric rise to lead the "new new left" in 2018 when she</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/08/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-new-york-226578">defeated Congressman Joe Crowley</a>, the boss of the Queens County Democratic Party
and someone widely thought to be the next speaker of the House. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span>In order to win in 2020 against Trump and his far-right faction of the
Republican Party, the currently balkanized left must form strong
coalitions with the same goal (if not the exact same platform) of
ousting the monster in the White House. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> For the next twenty
months, in order to avoid the catastrophe of an 8-year Trump Presidency, establishment Democrats, Justice Democrats, Progressives, Democratic Socialists, and other "left
and left-leaning" organizations need to find common ground and work
together to achieve the common end -- the end of Trump. To do this, they
must bring Independents into the fold, which will be tricky, given the leftward lean
of the coalition.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> This doesn't mean that Justice Democrats must
"knuckle under" to Tom Perez and <a href="https://democrats.org/about/our-leaders/cheri-bustos/">Cheri Bustos</a> and toe the party line. It
means meaningful dialogue free of recriminations geared toward
goal-oriented compromise. If they can't do that, maybe they don't deserve to
the lead the nation. Chances are, they won't anyway.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>DONALD TRUMP will continue tweet</b> about the themes that rile his base; "illegal immigration," "infanticide," "fake news," the Mueller "witch hunt," countries taking advantage of America, from China on trade to NATO countries on defense, and the old reliable, Hillary Clinton emails. Whenever the news cycle tilts against him, he finds a way to alter the balance by saying or doing something outlandish, but generally inconsequential. When he's actually done something outrageous and consequential, like separating families and their children at the border, he tries to pass the blame off on someone else, e.g., </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span class="st">Department of Homeland Security <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/07/710870473/homeland-security-secretary-kirstjen-nielsen-resigns">Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen</a>.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Trump will also attempt to probe divisions he spots within the opposition, like the Bernie and Biden factions arguing over which candidate has the worst record with women. The fact that Trump himself is a serial abuser doesn't stop him. He's glad to bring others into his orbit. Democrats must avoid eating their own. If they don't, Trump will serve up plenty of "what about ism." </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Finally, as 2020 draws nearer, Trump will brag about all that he's accomplished and make more promises about the great things he's going to do in his second term, e.g., he just promised that when he's reelected in 2020, he will implement the greatest health care plan ever. Yes folks, he is indeed a con man.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Democrats -- center, left, moderate, new and old -- must
avoid barking at the moon -- avoid responding angrily to Trump's
attempts at misdirection and stick to the issues that resonate with the
majority of Americans. And believe me, when Democrats control the White House, the Senate, and the House, we will see a great health care system enacted -- because no matter what their leanings, Democrats believe in serving the people, and that will make all the difference.</span></span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-19669655509092212482019-04-01T09:37:00.000-07:002019-04-12T21:57:36.516-07:00National Poetry Month: Climate Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbG2NSTvguq31qjj1OMfjkg_pGyTP_97JsSTshszDsgtC42pSNa_x2djTTuFT_uud5QNyGXiTRboyyNAWozH5AYjR0hvd01QQV8YP3m2NovKaNdhwIu1Dir5yembZUzEWggZq8Aue4Tpo/s1600/Kayaking.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="550" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbG2NSTvguq31qjj1OMfjkg_pGyTP_97JsSTshszDsgtC42pSNa_x2djTTuFT_uud5QNyGXiTRboyyNAWozH5AYjR0hvd01QQV8YP3m2NovKaNdhwIu1Dir5yembZUzEWggZq8Aue4Tpo/s200/Kayaking.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>Kayaking along Market Street </b></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
The waters are rising</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Inundating islands</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
occupied by the innocent</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Surging over cities seething</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
with the unrepentant</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Kayaking along Market Street</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
enjoying the novelty</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Until Charleston became a swamp<br />
_________________________________________<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
According to our government's <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/">Fourth National Climate Assessment Report</a>, the social, economic, and environmental systems along the coasts are being affected by climate change. Threats from sea level rise (SLR) are exacerbated by dynamic processes such as high tide and storm surge flooding, erosion, waves and their effects, saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers and elevated groundwater table, local rainfall, river runoff, increasing water and surface air temperature, and ocean acidification.<br /><br />Although storms, floods, and erosion have always been hazards, in combination with rising sea levels they now threaten approximately $1 trillion in national wealth held in coastal real estate and the continued viability of coastal communities that depend on coastal water, land, and other resources for economic health and cultural integrity. The effects of the coastal risks posed by a changing climate already are and will continue to be experienced in both intersecting and distinct ways, and coastal areas are already beginning to take actions to address and ameliorate these risks. <a href="https://nextcity.org/features/view/climate-change-cities-planning-charleston-flood">Charleston is one such city</a>. Others are ignoring them, or even <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article173114701.html">prohibiting their mention</a> in city planning documents.</div>
</div>
</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-66797273842101400322019-03-31T22:51:00.002-07:002019-03-31T22:51:35.959-07:00April 2019 is National Poetry Month<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4kAGCBY6K9IPpSGXuhHUd7dUhfTATrLt6Dd_G-vW0fe-rRQNsKIJtgaXLC_BQupnnGZD7aaJjdnc2QhuRuI1bb9-ndWr9lsA7TD62hH8JiBuQ5DemoryriKjcHJZgdeffdS-d6nNDFM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2019-03-31+at+4.32.32+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="998" data-original-width="784" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgk4kAGCBY6K9IPpSGXuhHUd7dUhfTATrLt6Dd_G-vW0fe-rRQNsKIJtgaXLC_BQupnnGZD7aaJjdnc2QhuRuI1bb9-ndWr9lsA7TD62hH8JiBuQ5DemoryriKjcHJZgdeffdS-d6nNDFM/s320/Screen+Shot+2019-03-31+at+4.32.32+PM.png" width="251" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">According to <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/t-s-eliot">T.S. Eliot</a>, "April is the cruelest month...," It's also
National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world. Go
to <a href="https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/30-ways-celebrate-national-poetry-month">poets.org</a> to see 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry
Month.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> I will post one poem every week of April, each on a different topic I care about: <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"type":104,"tn":"*N"}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/climatechange?source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG"><span class="_5afx"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">ClimateChange</span></span></a>, <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"type":104,"tn":"*N"}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/immigration?source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG"><span class="_5afx"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">Immigration</span></span></a>, <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"type":104,"tn":"*N"}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/gunviolence?source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG"><span class="_5afx"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">GunViolence</span></span></a>, <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"type":104,"tn":"*N"}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/poverty?source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG"><span class="_5afx"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">Poverty</span></span></a>, and a bonus on <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"type":104,"tn":"*N"}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/genomics?source=feed_text&epa=HASHTAG"><span class="_5afx"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">Genomics</span></span></a>. I invite you to do the same.</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="text_exposed_show">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Eliot's poem, The Waste Land, from which the lines, "April is the cruelest month" come, ends:<br /> Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.<br /> Shantih shantih shantih</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">
You may be familiar with these terms if you practice or have studied
Hinduism and/or Buddhism. I haven't, but when I first read the poem in
my "formative years," I looked them up, and then followed the threads to
Buddhism and flirted with becoming a monk. Unfortunately, I was not
permitted to wear a robe and sandals in the military, so abandoned that
flirtation, and instead focused my amorous attentions on a pretty Air Force nurse who was tending to my ills. That led to a sudden profusion
of love poems, too embarrassing to publish.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"> In this time of Trump, I hope for you,<br /> Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata<br /> Shantih</span></span></div>
</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-71273096382347363612017-05-14T10:36:00.001-07:002017-05-14T10:36:34.921-07:00Remembering My Mother on Mothers' Day 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWItTTevkoiXq9fW-z5XTgZqndOSwqtWOUFImuYp2jG7pKXeycqVPdn_twXGOW6uP5tcJN9ZDii3T1gqSWKsSYNikj1hKRw-nMhLu0kCZ0R4sAPVlXkiKkD2n9SGalJLAGp2o9ai1oz0/s1600/nella_ship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWItTTevkoiXq9fW-z5XTgZqndOSwqtWOUFImuYp2jG7pKXeycqVPdn_twXGOW6uP5tcJN9ZDii3T1gqSWKsSYNikj1hKRw-nMhLu0kCZ0R4sAPVlXkiKkD2n9SGalJLAGp2o9ai1oz0/s320/nella_ship.jpg" width="227" /></a></div>
My mother, Nella, had a favorite expression; “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” She lived her life in a way that embodied that saying.<br /><br />Nella was raised by an aunt in a little village in the hills of Tuscany, Italy. There was little work to be had in Italy and Nella’s mother and father were working in France, she as a wet nurse, he as a shoemaker. Deficient nourishment resulted in Nella contracting a form of polio. The doctors told her mother that Nella would have to wear braces for the rest of life. A decade later (1918), Nella was walking off the ship, Conte Verde, at Ellis Island unaided.<br /><br />The family settled in Chicago and Nella, 4’ 11” on her tip toes, learned English and defended herself fiercely against school bullies who picked on the new immigrants. She graduated from high school, got a business school certificate, and at 20 years-old, set out on her own for California, where she worked during the day as a hospital switchboard operator and studied ballet in the evenings at the Earl Wallace Studios. She presented the Italian version of the Paul Whiteman movie, The King of Jazz, in 1930, and was about to go on tour with the Earl Wallace Dancers when she met and married my dad. They were together for 76 years.<br /><br />My mother’s admonition to never give up and her encouragement of my aspirations were the foundation of whatever success I’ve had in life, and the enduring respect I have for those early intrepid immigrants to America’s land of opportunity.</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-18705622403555144152017-05-13T21:21:00.001-07:002017-05-13T21:21:36.829-07:00I'm Thinking of Her<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Ftuvvr7o3hi3jTYTPRfuSGeonhzTbnk6ZwaBzRvbCJuZlNGmNevXTmLdPhIDmsD_e9kiMIKOjsGTHGG1clGmCsvOipARyN6Pyti7b4AVlgaXJ_qmYdEztnSiAbTcE0EZvhYRAv-bXDc/s1600/IMG_3475.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Ftuvvr7o3hi3jTYTPRfuSGeonhzTbnk6ZwaBzRvbCJuZlNGmNevXTmLdPhIDmsD_e9kiMIKOjsGTHGG1clGmCsvOipARyN6Pyti7b4AVlgaXJ_qmYdEztnSiAbTcE0EZvhYRAv-bXDc/s400/IMG_3475.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jacobs Road, Kennewick, WA, May 2017</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>I don't know how to pray</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>or to whom</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>or what</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>or why</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>I know the sky</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>the grass</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>the flowers</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>and speak with them</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>In whispers</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"I'm thinking of her"</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Again?</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>"Always" </i></span></span></div>
</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-48117322833516022892017-05-08T21:48:00.000-07:002017-05-08T21:48:19.012-07:00Fargo 2017<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsELnNC9iBDytI1BnvMPjM_rYviCV04vIo_tNXRN0Bk5TDgq69HGur_SfvuUtRgt7LzYR1g-RE5QnWoMCamR6Wq3wTCg9b8S1AEhHD_9oqYhqJLXxy45qMrZJ72MUMCiRpRyIyc-tN0E/s1600/NEIoblFRJSGzMN_2_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="168" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsELnNC9iBDytI1BnvMPjM_rYviCV04vIo_tNXRN0Bk5TDgq69HGur_SfvuUtRgt7LzYR1g-RE5QnWoMCamR6Wq3wTCg9b8S1AEhHD_9oqYhqJLXxy45qMrZJ72MUMCiRpRyIyc-tN0E/s320/NEIoblFRJSGzMN_2_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Ewan McGreagor as Ray Stussy in Season 3 of the TV drama, Fargo, tells his parolee girlfriend (and accomplice), Nikki Swango (Mary Elizabeth Wingstead), "I ain't never killed nobody before." Nikki pats him on the arm and says, "Life's a journey."</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-32157623766346484652017-05-01T20:59:00.001-07:002017-05-01T20:59:52.136-07:00Eating the Sun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #b45f06;">(originally published April 2009)</span>
</div>
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzVIHOOBVVZJ6o6DpxHXnUnBNZ13OC7BMMcB4DTQKvsHd4cIexoXCPEqyN_L00W9hE5udbA5bRrfXAMGsTFknQYJnYtdeFuZ4bXHHzXXibUfbc5W7hsO81hTLojJuyZzWZ7gO83y2ySk/s1600-h/IMG_0083.JPG" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327353148520643410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSzVIHOOBVVZJ6o6DpxHXnUnBNZ13OC7BMMcB4DTQKvsHd4cIexoXCPEqyN_L00W9hE5udbA5bRrfXAMGsTFknQYJnYtdeFuZ4bXHHzXXibUfbc5W7hsO81hTLojJuyZzWZ7gO83y2ySk/s400/IMG_0083.JPG" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 267px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mouths open</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eating the sun</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Greedy for fire and flame</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">To nourish their sex</span></i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Shameless</span></i></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-65509201468292212212017-04-22T20:00:00.001-07:002017-04-22T20:00:58.882-07:00The Nameless All-Dissolving Ocean<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQwQ_NFDQW0qrvPZS9yaCxX1BZ-2p33IX8k-50zB3BWWBu1UtPHybr4qVws_uu7QFi2kQEna5SHCRj7zGAOeQI-XgeEvi7wUXSJDd9DxwkmuqSNsfV9G07LnRiXV6KXYuIYmg180omOE/s1600/Image-129D15CE981011DD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhQwQ_NFDQW0qrvPZS9yaCxX1BZ-2p33IX8k-50zB3BWWBu1UtPHybr4qVws_uu7QFi2kQEna5SHCRj7zGAOeQI-XgeEvi7wUXSJDd9DxwkmuqSNsfV9G07LnRiXV6KXYuIYmg180omOE/s320/Image-129D15CE981011DD.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cannon Beach, OR, May 31, 2012</span></span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Someone inside you steps from the forest and across the beach toward the nameless all-dissolving ocean.</i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #b45f06;"> </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">(from Astonished, by Don McKay)</span></span></div>
</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-16316038138460392942017-02-02T19:59:00.000-08:002017-02-02T19:59:26.374-08:00Winter on the Columbia River<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLBXJoVulsaWJ_A6XhmgLRbYuwcYnZ1zvcure7yW1t68BXf02yfyhlwEJ0f2iNqi1Rav1B23OvdPdiGkTHjP7P6f8ZB84TcM_4Inv4IJDFkcxTf56Cp-F6xbCcaPVqxid17M-lFFBweQ/s1600/IMG_2219.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwLBXJoVulsaWJ_A6XhmgLRbYuwcYnZ1zvcure7yW1t68BXf02yfyhlwEJ0f2iNqi1Rav1B23OvdPdiGkTHjP7P6f8ZB84TcM_4Inv4IJDFkcxTf56Cp-F6xbCcaPVqxid17M-lFFBweQ/s400/IMG_2219.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Columbia River, looking up river from the lighthouse, Noon on February 2, 2017</td></tr>
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<br /></div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-65426034105825470832017-01-19T14:32:00.000-08:002020-06-12T12:32:38.103-07:00Donald J Trump Becomes the 45th President of the United States of America<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKAz7kROisQANB1rg1DLT9OdBnwN5kzFC4X1sv3CssIaCVp9KqYZ7eie38wv9zt7GI-vrFPwHJQHJsuEnX1QKzUxUjS6Rwx6dCCOLTPJEINDQM0WmV2iWvjrDBtKNYb6IbH3uLdxBq_SA/s1600/TrumP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="386" data-original-width="320" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKAz7kROisQANB1rg1DLT9OdBnwN5kzFC4X1sv3CssIaCVp9KqYZ7eie38wv9zt7GI-vrFPwHJQHJsuEnX1QKzUxUjS6Rwx6dCCOLTPJEINDQM0WmV2iWvjrDBtKNYb6IbH3uLdxBq_SA/s320/TrumP.jpg" width="265" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Turning and turning in the widening gyre</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The best lack all conviction, while the worst</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Are full of passionate intensity.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Surely some revelation is at hand;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The darkness drops again but now I know</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
That twenty centuries of stony sleep</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?</div>
<br />
<b>THE SECOND COMING</b><br />
<u>William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)</u><br />
<br /></div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-87094137046866935322017-01-16T20:24:00.000-08:002017-01-16T20:24:27.420-08:00The Trespasser, by Tana French<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjUUSpZakoEezwQqehwLr8lGbl7iWxthbTJ-S9hadsXXyiTjx3ddzanJTn5BMFmY56rwAUTevgFlSv9m2yVCGzxTNgg7ocNgk_QePj-zO61MseQCYgoRbslxieak3LXngJ4CdMUQ3R0cQ/s1600/T_French_Trespasser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjUUSpZakoEezwQqehwLr8lGbl7iWxthbTJ-S9hadsXXyiTjx3ddzanJTn5BMFmY56rwAUTevgFlSv9m2yVCGzxTNgg7ocNgk_QePj-zO61MseQCYgoRbslxieak3LXngJ4CdMUQ3R0cQ/s200/T_French_Trespasser.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<span class="drop-cap"><span class="drop-cap__inner">I finished reading Tana French's 'The Trespasser' first thing this morning. I actually set it aside late last night, because I was getting so stressed out about it I knew I'd have trouble sleeping. Here's a review that tracks pretty well with my impressions of this outstanding crime drama.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span class="drop-cap"><span class="drop-cap__inner">Review by Alison Flood, The Guardian</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span class="drop-cap"><span class="drop-cap__inner">T</span></span>here’s more than a little of the noir about <a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jul/27/tana-french-interview" title="">Tana French’</a>s latest, <i>The Trespasser</i>.
Set, like her previous thrillers, among the detectives of Dublin’s
murder squad, perhaps it (hard-)boils down to the fact that her
protagonist this time, detective Antoinette Conway, manages to fizz with
contempt for the world around her, bristle with toughness and sink
regularly into poetic gloom all at the same time.<br />
<br />
“The case comes in, or anyway it comes in to us, on a frozen dawn in
the kind of closed-down January that makes you think the sun’s never
going to drag itself back above the horizon,” says Conway, the only
female detective on the Dublin squad, dealing with the cruel practical
jokes of colleagues who want to see the back of her, and lumbered with
straightforward domestic violence cases when she wants to be on the
trail of psychotic serial killers. <br />
<br />
This particular case looks like a lovers’ tiff, “just like the
uniforms figured... some gobshite who got his knickers in a twist and
threw a tantrum at his girlfriend”. Aislinn Murray is lying dead in her
immaculate home, blond and beautiful. Everyone is convinced the
boyfriend did it, but Conway and her partner Stephen Moran – both
appeared in French’s previous novel, <a class="u-underline" data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/15/best-thrillers-2014-lauren-beukes-tana-french" title=""><i>The Secret Place</i></a> – believe there’s more to it.
Or perhaps, tired of being given the easy solves, they just want this
to be more than another “slam-dunk” case. Keeping it quiet from the
rest of the team, they pursue a series of dark possibilities, in the
process discovering there was more to the glossy Murray than met the eye
(“everything about her seems dense enough with sadness to drop you like
a sandbag”).<br />
<br />
Conway is an enjoyably complex companion, both bruisingly
misanthropic – “If he’s not our guy, he’s such a godawful damp weenie,
the kind who needs regular slaps across the back of the head just to
keep him from vanishing up his own hole” – and so in love with her job
it almost makes you want to give it a try. “That pulse is hammering right through me, practically lifting me off
the bench. Forget coffee; this job, when it’s right, this job is the
hit that speed freaks throw their lives away hunting ... It’s a smell of
blood raging at the back of your nose, it’s your arm muscle throbbing
to let go the bowstring, it’s drums speeding in your ears and a victory
roar building at the bottom of your gut.<br />
<br />
French also pulls it out of the bag here with some of the best back
and forth interrogation scenes out there. “No ifs and maybes twitching
in the corners, gumming up the air, itching inside my clothes... Just me
and the guy across from me, and what we both know he did. It lies on
the table between us, a solid thing with the taut, dark shine of a
meteorite, for the winner to claim.”<br />
<br />
As she and Moran edge closer and closer to a dangerous truth,
obstacles continue to fall or be planted in their paths, until they’re
not sure they even want to get to the bottom of what they’re looking
for.<br />
<br />
While <i>The Trespasser</i> isn’t quite up to the intense brilliance of <i>The Secret Place</i>, it is still a gnarly, absorbing read, and a finely tuned slice of wintry gloom from one of the best thriller writers we have.<br />
<br />
Read <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/03/tana-frenchs-intimate-crime-fiction">more about Tana French here</a>. </div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-62894146754087613082017-01-05T16:08:00.001-08:002017-01-05T16:08:50.410-08:00Walk Don't Run<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaeAf7tZ62GmHG_QVAyF45YhvTJRB_t_VFSylaN1O8r-MCgrKeB8RD-ebpXH57KtF46nVITHOrFUexJJh8idG-lqfCMTa3OSPMrapVQJSR4j9T7fRGTaSb5aYEUS02RFmS3mv2jTk1rQ/s1600/Quail-Snow.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcaeAf7tZ62GmHG_QVAyF45YhvTJRB_t_VFSylaN1O8r-MCgrKeB8RD-ebpXH57KtF46nVITHOrFUexJJh8idG-lqfCMTa3OSPMrapVQJSR4j9T7fRGTaSb5aYEUS02RFmS3mv2jTk1rQ/s320/Quail-Snow.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">The quail, quivering with indignation at the interruption, scatter hither and yon, panicked but persevering in their refusal to fly, least they lose their dignity, they run stiff-legged, little best men at the wedding, dressed in their tuxes, running into bushes.</span></span></div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-62231043533020252362016-12-23T19:48:00.000-08:002016-12-23T19:48:35.187-08:00Christmas Story<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjbrkR5UHCsfy8bCzLRpklQQxS4VaY0gT6OcOQtxSdgOxXL6k5Tgu-9Qc7aRSisqa6-oA0aWktzQffaRVT_jznrW1oPMU4sOjJKPQ-b6JNkhh8fGSDWeRp7js_qHzaLUWVl73csim6K7w/s1600/268852-candy_house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjbrkR5UHCsfy8bCzLRpklQQxS4VaY0gT6OcOQtxSdgOxXL6k5Tgu-9Qc7aRSisqa6-oA0aWktzQffaRVT_jznrW1oPMU4sOjJKPQ-b6JNkhh8fGSDWeRp7js_qHzaLUWVl73csim6K7w/s1600/268852-candy_house.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="font: 11.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Hello Mayor Mayer,” Tom said, shaking hands with the Mayor. “I’m Tom Builder and I’ve come to your town to build houses.”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 11.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mayor
Mayer pushed his glasses up on his big, red nose, put his hands on his
big, fat hips, and said in his little squeaky voice, “We have plenty of
houses already, mister… what did you say your name was?”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 11.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Builder, Tom Builder. Are you sure you don’t need a few more houses, Mr. Mayor?”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 11.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mayor
Mayer leaned forward and looked Tom Builder right in the eye and said,
“Look Mr. Builder, we have houses of every description here in Eltopia.
We have big houses, we have little houses, we have wood houses, and we
have brick houses, we have one story houses, and we have two story
houses, why, heck, we even have a three story house. That’s my house,”
said the mayor, with a satisfied smile.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 11.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When
Tom Builder got back to the hotel he told his wife, Hilder, what the
mayor had said. “Gosh, Hilder, I don’t know what to do. There’s no work
for me building houses here in Eltopia. How will I make enough money to
take care of you, and little Milder and Gilder?”</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 11.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Don’t
you worry, Tom Builder,” said Hilder. “You’ll think of something.” But
Hilder was worried, too. Christmas was coming. Would she and Tom be able
to buy the children presents? </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It’s not important,</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> she thought. </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As long as we have a place to live and can put food on the table, we’ll be all right.</span></span></i></span></div>
<div style="font: 11px Helvetica; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: center;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://ihearspaghetti.blogspot.com/2012/05/sweet-surprise.html"><b>Click Here to Read the Rest of the Story</b></a> </span></span></i></span></div>
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Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-7273172358530259642016-12-22T19:55:00.002-08:002016-12-22T19:56:14.487-08:00Mesmerized, by Gayle Lynds<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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High-powered attorney Beth Convey gets a heart transplant, becomes enmeshed in a dastardly plot to assassinate the new Russian President, Vladimir Putin (the novel was published in 2001) -- right in the White House Rose Garden -- and finds herself endowed with a whole new set of skills and abilities as she fights to prevent the plot from succeeding.<br />
<br />
Her adventures quickly team her up with Washington Post investigative reporter, undercover FBI operative, and undeniable hunk, Jeffrey Hammond. Together they battle US-embedded rogue KGB agents, anti-government American militia members, a mole in the FBI working for the Russians, and the various National Security agencies of the United States, who, as usual in these thrillers, get it all wrong.<br />
<br />
If nothing else, Lynds manages a lively pace, but for what is basically a romance novel, there is only one sexual encounter between Beth and Jeff and it is painful to read. "He pressed his lips into her belly and tasted her, savory as buttermilk." Could be a yeast infection.<br />
<br />
I'd been looking forward to the scene for most of the novel, because Beth's heart donor turned out to be a male Russian agent skilled in karate and general hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and high-speed driving, among other things, and Beth had "inherited" (I'll spare you the pseudo-science) his skills, his thought processes, many of his memories (which she relived through dreams), and apparently, something of his sensitivities. How would this manifest itself when, "panting," she kicked off her "thong" and opened her legs to Hammond?<br />
<br />
First, she's wearing a thong through all this action?! Second, why aren't the two fighting for the top position? Third... well, I don't want to go there.<br />
<br />
I admit I skimmed a lot of the book. I just wasn't that mesmerized.</div>
Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-16334802120056932932016-12-04T20:37:00.004-08:002016-12-04T20:37:50.235-08:00Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<i>Read this wonderful, amazing, lyrical, sad, funny, fateful book. </i><br />
<br />
<a href="http://colummccann.com/books/let-the-great-world-spin/"><span style="color: #b45f06;">Let The Great World Spin – An Excerpt, © Colum McCann 2009</span></a><br />
<span style="color: #b45f06;">(Random House, 2009)</span><br />
<br />
Those who saw him hushed. On Church Street. Liberty. Cortlandt. West Street. Fulton. Vesey. It was a silence that heard itself, awful and beautiful. Some thought at first that it must have been a trick of the light, something to do with the weather, an accident of shadowfall. <br />
<br />
Others figured it might be the perfect city joke—stand around and point upward, until people gathered, tilted their heads, nodded, affirmed, until all were staring <br />
upward at nothing at all, like waiting for the end of a Lenny Bruce gag. But the longer they watched, the surer they were. He stood at the very edge of the building, shaped dark against the gray of the morning. A window washer maybe. Or a construction worker.<br />
<br />
Or a jumper. <br />
<br />
Up there, at the height of a hundred and ten stories, utterly still, a dark toy against the cloudy sky.<br />
<br />
He could only be seen at certain angles so that the watchers had to pause at street corners, find a gap between buildings, or meander from the shadows to get a view unobstructed by cornicework, gargoyles, balustrades, roof edges. None of them had yet made sense of the line strung at his feet from one tower to the other. Rather, it was the manshape that held them there, their necks craned, torn between the promise of doom and the disappointment of the ordinary. It was the dilemma of the watchers: they didn’t want to wait around for nothing at all, some idiot standing on the precipice of the towers, but they didn’t want to miss the moment either, if he slipped, or got arrested, or dove, arms stretched.<br />
<br />
Around the watchers, the city still made its everyday noises. Car horns. Garbage trucks. Ferry whistles. The thrum of the subway. The M22 bus pulled in against the sidewalk, braked, sighed down into a pothole. A flying chocolate wrapper touched against a fire hydrant. Taxi doors slammed. Bits of trash sparred in the darkest reaches of the alleyways. Sneakers found their sweetspots. The leather of briefcases rubbed against trouserlegs. A few umbrella tips clinked against the pavement. Revolving doors pushed quarters of conversation out into the street. But the watchers could have taken all the sounds and smashed them down into a single noise and still they wouldn’t have heard much at all: even when they cursed, it was done quietly, reverently.<br />
<br />
They found themselves in small groups together beside the traffic lights on the corner of Church and Dey; gathered under the awning of Sam’s barbershop; in the doorway of Charlie’s Audio; a tight little theater of men and women against the railings of St. Paul’s Chapel; elbowing for space at the windows of the Woolworth Building. Lawyers. Elevator operators. Doctors. Cleaners. Prep chefs. Diamond merchants. Fish sellers. Sad- jeaned whores. All of them reassured by the presence of one another. <br />
<br />
Stenographers. Traders. Deliveryboys. Sandwichboard men. Cardsharks. Con Ed. Ma Bell. Wall Street. A locksmith in his van on the corner of Dey and Broadway. A bike messenger lounging against a lamppost on West. A red- faced rummy out looking for an early- morning pour. From the Staten Island Ferry they glimpsed him. From the meatpacking warehouses on the West Side. From the new high- rises in Battery Park. From the breakfast carts down on Broadway.<br />
<br />
From the plaza below. From the towers themselves.<br />
<br />
Sure, there were some who ignored the fuss, who didn’t want to be bothered. It was seven forty- seven in the morning and they were too jacked up for anything but a desk, a pen, a telephone. Up they came from the subway stations, from limousines, off city buses, crossing the street at a clip, refusing the prospect of a gawk. Another day, another dolor. But as they passed the little clumps of commotion they began to slow down.<br />
<br />
Some stopped altogether, shrugged, turned nonchalantly, walked to the corner, bumped up against the watchers, went to the tips of their toes, gazed over the crowd, and then introduced themselves with a Wow or a Gee- whiz or a Jesus H. Christ.<br />
<br />
The man above remained rigid, and yet his mystery was mobile. He stood beyond the railing of the observation deck of the south tower—at any moment he might just take off. Below him, a single pigeon swooped down from the top floor of the Federal Office Building, as if anticipating the fall. The movement caught the eyes of some watchers and they followed the gray flap against the small of the standing man. The bird shot from one eave to another, and it was then the watchers noticed that they had been joined by others at the windows of offices, where blinds were being lifted and a few glass panes labored upward. All that could be seen was a pair of elbows or the end of a shirtsleeve, or an arm garter, but then it was joined by a head, or an odd- looking pair of hands above it, lifting the frame even higher. In the windows of nearby skyscrapers, figures came to look out—men in shirtsleeves and women in bright blouses, wavering in the glass like funhouse apparitions.<br />
<br />
Higher still, a weather helicopter executed a dipping turn over the Hudson—a curtsy to the fact that the summer day was going to be cloudy and cool anyway—and the rotors beat a rhythm over the warehouses of the West Side. At first the helicopter looked lopsided in its advance, and a small side window was slid open as if the machine were looking for air. A lens appeared in the open window. It caught a brief flash of light. After a moment the helicopter corrected beautifully and spun across the expanse. Some cops on the West Side Highway switched on their misery lights, swerved fast off the exit ramps, making the morning all the more magnetic.<br />
<br />
A charge entered the air all around the watchers and—now that the day had been made official by sirens—there was a chatter among them, their balance set on edge, their calm fading, and they turned to one another and began to speculate, would he jump, would he fall, would he tiptoe along the ledge, did he work there, was he solitary, was he a decoy, was he wearing a uniform, did anyone have binoculars? <br />
<br />
Perfect strangers touched one another on the elbows. Swearwords went between them, and whispers that there’d been a botched robbery, that he was some sort of cat burglar, that he’d taken hostages, he was an Arab, a Jew, a Cypriot, an IRA man, that he was really just a publicity stunt, a corporate scam, Drink more Coca- Cola, Eat more Fritos, Smoke more Parliaments, Spray more Lysol, Love more Jesus.<br />
<br />
Or that he was a protester and he was going to hang a slogan, he would slide it from the tower ledge, leave it there to flutter in the breeze, like some giant piece of sky laundry—nixon out now! remember ’nam, sam! independence for indochina!—and then someone said that maybe he was a hang glider or a parachutist, and all the others laughed, but they were perplexed by the cable at his feet, and the rumors began again, a collision of curse and whisper, augmented by an increase in sirens, which got their hearts pumping even more, and the helicopter found a purchase near the west side of the towers, while down in the foyer of the World Trade Center the cops were sprinting across the marble floor, and the undercovers were whipping out badges from beneath their shirts, and the fire trucks were pulling into the plaza, and the redblue dazzled the glass, and a flatbed truck arrived with a cherry picker, its fat wheels bouncing over the curb, and someone laughed as the picker kiltered sideways, the driver looking up, as if the basket might reach all that sad huge way, and the security guards were shouting into their walkie- talkies, and the whole August morning was blown wide open, and the watchers stood rooted, there was no going anywhere for a while, the voices rose to a crescendo, all sorts of accents, a babel, until a small redheaded man in the Home Title Guarantee Company on Church Street lifted the sash of his office window, placed his elbows on the sill, took a deep breath, leaned out, and roared into the distance: Do it, asshole! <br />
<br />
There was a dip before the laughter, a second before it sank in among the watchers, a reverence for the man’s irreverence, because secretly that’s what so many of them felt—Do it, for chrissake! Do it!—and then a torrent of chatter was released, a call- and- response, and it seemed to ripple all the way from the windowsill down to the sidewalk and along the cracked pavement to the corner of Fulton, down the block along Broadway, where it zigzagged down John, hooked around to Nassau, and went on, a domino of laughter, but with an edge to it, a longing, an awe, and many of the watchers realized with a shiver that no matter what they said, they really wanted to witness a great fall, see someone arc downward all that distance, to disappear from the sight line, flail, smash to the ground, and give the Wednesday an electricity, a meaning, that all they needed to become a family was one millisecond of slippage, while the others—those who wanted him to stay, to hold the line, to become the brink, but no farther—felt viable now with disgust for the shouters: they wanted the man to save himself, step backward into the arms of the cops instead of the sky. They were jazzed now. <br />
Pumped. <br />
The lines were drawn. <br />
Do it, asshole! <br />
Don’t do it!<br />
<br />
Way above there was a movement. In the dark clothing his every twitch counted. He folded over, a half- thing, bent, as if examining his shoes, like a pencil mark, most of which had been erased. The posture of a diver. And then they saw it. The watchers stood, silent. Even those who had wanted the man to jump felt the air knocked out. They drew back and moaned.<br />
<br />
A body was sailing out into the middle of the air. He was gone. He’d done it. Some blessed themselves. Closed their eyes. Waited for the thump. The body twirled and caught and flipped, thrown around by the wind.<br />
<br />
Then a shout sounded across the watchers, a woman’s voice: God, oh God, it’s a shirt, it’s just a shirt.<br />
<br />
It was falling, falling, falling, yes, a sweatshirt, fluttering, and then their eyes left the clothing in midair, because high above the man had unfolded upward from his crouch, and a new hush settled over the cops above and the watchers below, a rush of emotion rippling among them, because the man had arisen from the bend holding a long thin bar in his hands, jiggling it, testing its weight, bobbing it up and down in the air, a long black bar, so pliable that the ends swayed, and his gaze was fixed on the far tower, still wrapped in scaffolding, like a wounded thing waiting to be reached, and now the cable at his feet made sense to everyone, and whatever else it was there would be no chance they could pull away now, no morning coffee, no conference room cigarette, no nonchalant carpet shuffle; the waiting had been made magical, and they watched as he lifted one dark- slippered foot, like a man about to enter warm gray water. The watchers below pulled in their breath all at once. The air felt suddenly shared. The man above was a word they seemed to know, though they had not heard it before.<br />
<br />
Out he went.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvKjBRQ0K5JFSl_-LN6R0GlypzAiWZosA4WMnfcLWmVMCT53LYiVi6czwKzhz4ZpEPoU3os1yof36A1gXqGB7RITh5iNXzFNdsbdK4JFMfa53GeEdg4Grjd-hbaKopcQ-vSIJm1OBB77U/s1600/colum-mccann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvKjBRQ0K5JFSl_-LN6R0GlypzAiWZosA4WMnfcLWmVMCT53LYiVi6czwKzhz4ZpEPoU3os1yof36A1gXqGB7RITh5iNXzFNdsbdK4JFMfa53GeEdg4Grjd-hbaKopcQ-vSIJm1OBB77U/s320/colum-mccann.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Colum McCann</td></tr>
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Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1837970659346946118.post-57394654008307343662016-12-04T19:46:00.001-08:002016-12-04T19:46:30.202-08:00Barkskins, by Annie Proulx<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/books/review/barkskins-by-annie-proulx.html">Barkskins, by Annie Proulx</a>, "a tale of long-term, shortsighted greed whose subject could not be more important: the destruction of America's forests."<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Annie Proulx's multi-generational story begins in 1693 with the colonization of "New France," the vast tract of north America and Canada colonized by the French between the 16th and 18th centuries. René Sel and Charles Duquet arrive in the new country as indentured servants to a harsh if not entirely brutal property owner and taskmaster, Monsieur Trépagny.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">René and Charles, awestruck by the imposing, often impenetrable and
seemingly limitless extent of the forest, react to it in strikingly
different ways. René cleaves to his inner woodsman, shaping himself to
the land, puzzled by the drive to cut further into the forest than
necessary. Eventually, he marries Mari, a Mi’kmaq woman skilled in the
therapeutic use of plants, enfolding her existing children with the
couple’s own, and setting in train one of the novel’s key strands: the
constant tension that their descendants feel as they negotiate their
dual heritage.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The next 650 pages trace the bloodlines of these two men in an often
grisly chronicle of deforestation, cultural erasure and international
commerce. We sit in on vomit-strewn ocean crossings, shady business
deals in Dutch coffee houses and fatal feuds between rival logging crews
razing land wrested from the native population. The rags-to-riches rise
of Duquet (always referred to by his surname) and the fortunes of his
in-fighting heirs contrast with the fate of René’s mixed-race
descendants, expropriated, exploited and scattered from New England to
New Zealand in search of a livelihood.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As the book moves from generation to generation, a general thesis
reveals itself: The concept of personal property, facilitated by
technology and propelled by the Christian mandate for dominion, is
largely to blame for the genocide of indigenous people and the impending
ecological collapse.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #b45f06;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">________________________________</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #b45f06;">This review is drawn from several reviews, including by Rich Smith, The Stranger, William T Vollman, the New York Times, and Alex Clark and Anthony Cummins, The Guardian.</span></span></span><br />
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Richard Badalamentehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06008785529404172402noreply@blogger.com0